


Clay Doll

by Enisy



Category: Star Wars Original Trilogy
Genre: Canon Compliant, Character Study, Force Ghost Yoda (Star Wars), Gen, Movie: Star Wars: Return of the Jedi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-12
Updated: 2020-04-12
Packaged: 2021-02-28 22:21:32
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,004
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23054650
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Enisy/pseuds/Enisy
Summary: Should Leia have become a Jedi Knight? Yoda thinks about his past and reevaluates.
Relationships: Leia Organa & Yoda
Comments: 9
Kudos: 16
Collections: Space Swap 2020





	Clay Doll

Warm it is. Peaceful.

Yoda reclines against the Force, as if it were a dorsal wind. On no account will it push him forward; but if he releases his weight, on no account will it let him fall back. And then sometimes he _is_ the wind, whistling through high grass, skipping along the surface of lakes, dancing in the desolation of ice moons. A mischievous ghost, he doesn’t hesitate to poke a Wookie’s exposed rib with his walking stick, or make ominous sounds above Darth Vader’s cot until he bolts awake.

He forgot his childhood a long time ago. His species’ memory is good – it can go back a couple hundred years – but peer into the dawn of a millennium, it cannot. Yet, ever since he died, he has seen image after image carried along this cosmic breeze – supernovas, lovers, fiends, rituals both grand and barbarous, the white interior of a perfectly cored fish – and some of them were his.

His family.

His tribe.

The wretched green thing soon to become a Jedi.

Up amongst the treetops of Endor, he can feel-touch-see-smell-taste Bright Tree Village. The Force stretches out here, undisturbed, and Yoda finds himself loosening up, too. It is a peaceful place… it is a peaceful people. Luke Skywalker is still around, bantering with the smuggler (a cold presence, to a Force ghost – a sceptic, this one, hmm). But this time, it is the boy’s twin that Yoda finds himself drawn to.

The light inside the hut bends around her frame, as she teaches an Ewok how to use a blaster. Infinitely patient, she kneels on the wooden floor, showing the tree dweller how to release the cartridge, straighten the barrel, compensate for the recoil.

Leia Organa, a princess for the common man – a beacon in the night.

Always his favorite, she was.

An image of his past suddenly floats by, and Yoda picks it up, regards it with equanimity. It is another holovid in which he plays the chief role: his rite of passage into the Force. (Or the Continuum, as his people used to call it.)

Still a tiny, wrinkled child, he is thrown into a cave, whose entrance seals behind him. He is allowed nothing with him, nothing, nothing, nothing – except four clay dolls, each shaped like a different member of his family.

He hugs them close to his chest the first night, crying himself to sleep. By day he looks for an exit, blindly feeling about the stone walls. To no avail: the rock does not give, nor curve inward at any point. In time, he will resort to scratching, which doesn’t help either, and leaves him feeling even more hurt and miserable.

Throughout his struggles, the clay dolls look on, silent, uncaring. The second night, he still opts to keep them near him – but his kind can go a long time without food and water, and as his feelings warp and evolve with each passing day, their expressions do not. He grows to hate them. Worse, he grows to hate his _family_ , who lent their likenesses to his tormentors.

(Lesson the first: in everyone you meet, even your loved ones, there is a hidden cache of darkness.)

He shatters the clay dolls in a fit of rage.

And finds a chisel inside.

(Lesson the second: in every darkness, there is a cache of light.)

As he emerges from the cave, his tribe raises a chant – _ohm k’pree!_ – that will stay with him long after his family’s faces have faded, evoking both triumph and a certain dose of horror.

Organa, he thinks, would have smashed the dolls from the very first.

Yoda sees her laugh as the Ewok shoulders the gun and proceeds to swagger around the room, impersonating Han Solo. He smiles, too. There is only one truth, but infinite potential, and he sees several possible futures for her carried along the flow of energy: queen, general, mother, empress, knight. He still believes Organa eminently suited for the last one. A waste of talent, her adoption was.

When Luke Skywalker comes to her with a plan to rout a band of Imperial scout troopers – it seems they are setting up a backup shield generator not far from here – she is categorical in her objection.

“Han will take care of it.”

“Leia, the Ewoks pointed out the scout troopers to _me_ – they want me to take point on this. Besides, I’m not letting Han take all the credit again.” He is grinning in that carefree manner he has – but Yoda knows better, can feel the imbalance inside him. Headstrong still, the boy, sometimes. Impulsive.

“Luke, you are _not_ as good of a pilot as Han…”

“We are piloting a speeder, not a starship.”

“And if something goes wrong, we cannot spare you. There are plenty of pilots, and smugglers, and badly groomed, ego-tripping madmen.” She puts her hand on his arm. “I don’t know another Jedi knight.”

The Force ripples between the siblings, so different yet so alike, Luke glimmering silver like an ancient coin, Organa like transparisteel. At length, Luke nods at her, steps out, and abseils down a sturdy-looking vine. Organa watches him go, fists clenched at her sides.

Such self-possession. Such restraint.

An excellent student, she would have made.

The Jedi Master shakes his head ruefully, and Organa looks up, not just facing in his general direction but staring him right in the eye – Force-sensitive as ever, even without any lightsaber training, and with an _edge_ to her, he sees now… an edge that’s doomed to be used outward: to hew, to build, to slash at dogmas, platitudes and propositions. Never to harness the power of the Force. Never to fight a Sith Lord. Never to cut to the quick of her own self, where shadows rear up to meet the light, and Vader’s terrible keepsakes lie dreaming.

Hmm.

(The Force ripples again, broad and inexorable, like a tribal chant – _ohm k’pree!_ – a scratch, a shattering.)

(Organa cracks her fragile smile.)

Better this way, it is.

**Author's Note:**

> I had to read the equivalent of a small encyclopedia to make sure I complied with canon, and I’m still not sure to what degree I was successful. Star Wars fanfiction is no joke, yo. Anyway, I hope you enjoyed!
> 
> I'm [enisywrites](https://enisywrites.tumblr.com/) on Tumblr. Come on over if you want to drop me a prompt or a question, or to just say hi!


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